


we intricately alive

by sxldato



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Awkward Dates, Character Development, Cultural References, F/M, Ice Skating, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Scary Movies, Study Date, Teen Angst, Underage Drinking, because they're awkward, not really awkward but if it involves jonathan and/or steve i label it as awkward, they're all such disasters god bless, this is getting gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-08-27 16:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8407975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxldato/pseuds/sxldato
Summary: The whole parallel dimension situation in their town put any romantic endeavors into a better perspective: stranger things had happened around here. Or: The one where Nancy doesn't have to choose.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "and this day it was Spring... us" by e.e. cummings.
> 
> This is an indefinite WIP; I have some more snippets already written that need to be polished and I will find a way to close it out at some point, but the way this fic is most likely going to progress is from requests made by you-- yes, _you!_ \-- in the comments. I'm 300% serious. You have an idea for this teen trash triad? Tell me about it. I wanna know. Unless it's totally outlandish or some kind of NSFW thing I'm not comfortable writing, I will probably definitely use your idea. Cool? Cool.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul-searching. A few negotiations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's talk about my daughter nancy wheeler for a second-- she deserves everything good in this world and that does NOT include some stupid love triangle trope they're gonna throw at her in season 2 ok thx  
> i also think the dynamic between steve and jonathan could be really interesting and hilarious because they're so different but they're also both kind of hilariously awkward in certain respects and i love them so much too, i love all these teen trash children  
> i beta'd. i should probably find a beta that isn't me.  
>  **For best reading experience, listen to "Permutations II" by Lo-Fang**

Nancy did not consider herself a slut.

That was to say, she didn't see herself as easy or desperate. And the word  _slut_ conveyed a sense of betrayal and infidelity, and that wasn't in her-- in this. Whatever this was. 

There were no lies here. That was foremost. After what they had all been through together, there wasn't room for secrets. Even if there were, there would be no reason to keep them. 

"I want to ask you something," she said, "and no matter what, I want you to be honest with me." 

It had been a couple weeks since that chaotic night in the Byers' house; Steve's face was still healing from the bruises left by Jonathan's fists, and the lingering hues of purple and yellow along his cheekbone caught the light of the afternoon sun. 

"Is something wrong?" 

"No, no, I just--" she might have held his hand a little tighter as they kept walking down the street-- "I'm not sure if it's a good idea, I don't want to freak you out..." 

"Nancy, hey." Steve stopped them both, his free hand going to Nancy's shoulder. "What's going on?" 

She fidgeted with the strap of her bag. The weight of her textbooks, manageable before, suddenly begged to drag her down. 

The thing about experiencing life-or-death situations with other people, Nancy had come to realize, was that it wasn't up to her how she felt about them. The connection was there whether she liked it or not, and it didn't feel right to only cast out one line. 

Maybe the free will lay within what she chose to do about it. 

"I want to talk about Jonathan." 

 

 

They sat on Nancy's porch for a while and Nancy did most of the talking. She found that the more she spoke, the more words built up inside her. She wanted to unravel her thoughts and spread them across the lawn for Steve to see. More than anything, even more than Steve being okay with this, she wanted Steve to at least  _understand_. 

The confusion in his face was more prominent than the heartbreak. "So this... isn't a break-up?" 

"Not at all," Nancy promised. "It's... a proposition. And you don't have to agree to it if you don't want to." 

Steve's eyebrows were furrowed as he turned the idea over and over, weighing fragile masculinity against an awful sort of love; the worst kind, where things had fallen apart and had slowly been patched back together but it was still different than before, and all he wanted now was to make her happy. It was the most selfless, most horrific devotion a teenage boy could have. 

"Am I not enough?" He asked. 

"Steve." Nancy's voice was soft with sympathy. 

"For real," Steve pressed on. "I don't wanna be strung along, Nance. If you were thinking this would hurt less--"

"You're both just different," she cut him off, not wanting him to follow those thoughts any further. "That's all. Does caring about Jonathan mean I can't care about you, too?"

"It's not just _caring_ , though. It's not that cut and dry and you know it." Steve ran a hand through his hair and it stuck up, a little wild. "You-- you _love_ him."  

He said it like a question, like it would stop being true if he wished hard enough. 

"... Yes," Nancy relented. "Look, I don't know what love is supposed to feel like. I don't know if this is even it. All I know... you both just mean so much to me, Steve, and I don't want to choose one of you because that's not fair to either of you, and it's not being true to myself." She faltered. Her gaze fell to her hands where they sat clasped firmly in her lap. "Maybe that's selfish of me, I don't know." 

After a repose of nothing but mourning doves cooing in the trees, Steve said, "You could never be selfish, Nancy." He leaned forward, trying to catch her eyes again, only speaking once he had her looking. "I think you got a lot of heart, you know? And you need places to put it." 

"If you don't feel comfortable with this," she began, but Steve didn't let her complete the uncertainty. 

"We'll figure it out," he said. "I don't get it, and I won't pretend to, but it doesn't sound like cheating. It sounds like Nancy." 

She smiled and he pressed a kiss to her forehead, wrapping his arms around her as a sharp gust of wind rolled in from the east. 

"How're we gonna ask him?" Steve whispered to her, and Nancy admitted that she hadn't come up with that part yet. 

 

 

Jonathan, quiet and timid and wary, had raised his hackles. He'd even made to get up and leave his own kitchen table, but Steve planted himself like a tree, as if daring Jonathan to walk out on Nancy.

Jonathan had then settled back into his chair, wearing a suspicious scowl that made Nancy inexplicably sad.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

Nancy tried not to be hurt that Jonathan thought she'd play with his feelings like that, tried to remember that Jonathan was used to being knocked around and picked on. His hesitance to trust was a reflection of himself, not of her. 

She leaned over and kissed him, soft and sweet. The tension in his body climbed higher at first, but then he turned to putty against her, all resistance leaving in one fell swoop; that butter-melting dissolve of self-control. 

Steve, though, now reeked of doubt. That was fair; it must have been strange, seeing your girlfriend kiss someone else right in front of you. Nancy turned to him and kissed his cheek, and the acrid unease began to lift from the room. 

Jonathan's pupils were blown wide when he asked, in a voice dropped low as if he feared the prying ears of unseen someones, "Is this really what you want?" 

Nancy nodded, looking back and forth between the two boys whom she loved so dearly. 

"They're gonna talk," Jonathan warned. "Like they talk about me. Now it'll be you guys, too." Then, to Nancy: "Me and Steve get off easy. But they'll treat you like dirt. They'll call you a slut." 

"This isn't about them," Nancy said. "And I don't want both of you for the sake of sex-- you know that, right?" At their shared silence, Nancy continued, "I want you both because I  _love_ you both." 

Matching rosy spots bloomed across Steve and Jonathan's cheeks. She was more confident this time around, sure of this red-hot hearth in her chest and the knowledge that it  _was_ love, and that it could warm more than one person. 

"They can talk all they want," she said. "You two are what matter to me, not any of them. And I think we can make this work, if you're willing to give it a try." 

The anxiety on Jonathan's face overrode any lingering skepticism; Nancy was not joking around, and that was somehow scarier than the possibility of being tricked. 

He looked over to Steve. "You already agreed to this?"

Steve nodded.

"Seriously?" A little incredulous, because this was  _Steve_ , who had called him a queer and fist-fought him in a back alley a month ago. But it was also the same Steve who had shown up at his house to apologize and saved his ass from the monster living in his walls. 

The whole parallel dimension situation in their town put any romantic endeavors into a better perspective: stranger things had happened around here.

"Yeah, seriously." Steve clapped him on the back and Jonathan barely kept himself from startling. "You're alright, Byers. And if Nancy's cool with you, then I'm cool with you." He grinned back at Nancy. "Pretty sure she's better at finding a good crowd than I am. I trust her."

Jonathan stared at Nancy, searching through every vein and artery in his body for some courage to trust her, too. After a few moments of silence measured through nervous heartbeats, he gave them both a hushed "okay" that was weak and wavering.

But Nancy's smile was so radiant that any doubts either of the boys had kept buried were now evaporating underneath the light. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two different kinds of dark rooms. Shedding some light on things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> steve is the ultimate garbage child but u know what he's a self-aware garbage child and i respect that  
> beta'd, i sacrificed writing my history paper for this, i'm regretting everything  
>  **For best reading experience, listen to "Called Out In The Dark" by Snow Patrol**

After the earth-shaking epiphany jumpstarted by Jonathan kicking his ass (really, who knew the guy could punch like that?), Steve had faced a simple truth: he was a bit of an asshole. 

He prided himself on his perseverance; he knew he could shape up if he tried hard enough. And he  _wanted_ to. The problem lay in the unknown (as problems often did), and it was what other people would think of him. It embarrassed him to be hung up on it, especially since it was something Jonathan outright ignored. Steve would never say this, but he envied Jonathan for that; the ability to salute the idea of normalcy with a silent but strong  _fuck you_ to their fellow peers. At this point, Steve couldn't blame him. Steve used to be one of them-- maybe he still kind of was-- and he could vouch that yeah, they were jerks. 

All the more reason to get away from it, and yet he worried. 

"Remember when you beat me up last month?" Steve asked. They were both in the school's darkroom, Jonathan developing photos and Steve hanging around with hesitant curiosity. 

"Considering I got arrested," Jonathan replied, "it's pretty vivid for me." 

Steve had apologized long before today for what he'd said, and multiple times too, but that didn't stop the deep twinge of guilt whenever he thought back to the absolute vitriol he'd spat at the other boy. He'd never figured out why he'd said those things, either; it had come from somewhere dark, spawned out of the instinct to stomp on other people when he felt shitty. He'd been _cruel_ , and it scared him to know he was capable of that.

"You got me," Steve said. "You really got me, you know?"

"Yeah."

He was glad he'd been beaten so badly. He was certain that without those moments, lying on the ground of the alley as Jonathan delivered hit after hit without mercy, he'd never have had the motivation to pull his shit together.

He'd been jealous, he decided. That's why he'd lashed out. Or at least that had been part of it. The way Jonathan could move through life without getting stuck on other people's thoughts looked like witchcraft. He'd been angry that he couldn't do it, too, and angry that Jonathan could be a social pariah and still be close with Nancy. It hadn't felt fair, and, like a petulant child, Steve had thrown a tantrum. 

"So I mean, I just--" merely talking about it was embarrassing, that's how deep he was in this cesspool of bullshit-- "they all gotta think I'm weak, right? 'Cause I couldn't take you. And you're  _you._ "

Even in the dim red light, Steve could tell that Jonathan looked a little ticked. 

"Sorry, that was mean," Steve said.  

He wasn't sure if he saw right, but for a second it seemed like Jonathan had a slight grin on his face.

"It's okay." Jonathan turned back to the tray of developer fluid and prodded his photos with a set of tongs. "What're you saying all this for?" 

"I'm just freaked out, man." Steve hopped up on one of the tables and rested his head against the wall. "Like, what they'll think when they see her with both of us. You said so yourself, they'll come for her." 

"'Cause that's what you did?" Jonathan always spoke so quietly, but that didn't dial back the bite in his words. 

"I-- yeah. 'Cause that's what I did." It was better to fess up and admit his mistakes than try to defend himself. He didn't have anything to defend, anyways. "But I don't want people saying stuff about her when they don't know her. I don't want her getting hurt." 

"Neither do I." Jonathan said. He picked up his photos one by one and placed them in the stop bath. "But Nancy's tough-- tougher than both of us. She wouldn't have done this if she didn't think she could handle it." 

That was one of the things they both loved about Nancy: her grit. She was small and unassuming with her lithe frame and large eyes, but she was smart as a whip and a scary good shot. Nobody fucked with Nancy Wheeler if they wanted to see another day. 

Steve, though, was malleable and putty-soft. Not like Nancy or Jonathan. He still cared about the thoughts of strangers. 

"They're gonna think I'm not good enough," Steve said, more to himself than to Jonathan. "That I'm not man enough for her." 

Jonathan was moving his photos to a tray of water now, and didn't look up at Steve once. Steve kind of appreciated that. 

"I don't mean to sound like an asshole when I say this," Jonathan said, "I really don't. I'm just being straight with you." Now he stopped, set down the tongs, and fixed Steve with his dark slanted eyes. "Before this goes any further, you gotta dig deep and figure out if you love her more than you love your reputation." 

 

 

"There's this new Clint Eastwood movie," Nancy said during lunch the following day. " _Sudden Impact._ I was thinking we could go see it this weekend." 

Steve stole his gaze from Nancy and over to Jonathan, who was looking at both of them with a delicate kind of fear that would better suit a wobbly-kneed fawn than a seventeen-year-old boy.

"All of us?" Jonathan asked, confused and unsure, as if waiting to be a punchline despite the repeated assurances that this wasn't a joke.

"All of us," Nancy confirmed, and her wide blue eyes had the two boys melting.

That Saturday was crisp and cold, a perfect day in early December. Nancy held their hands on the way to the theater, gloved fingers intertwined in gentle lovers' holds. Her purse bounced against her leg and her ponytail swished back and forth with each step. The boys, being taller than her, were able to share a quick glance without her noticing, and they echoed each other's sentiments: She was so beautiful, so powerful, their own Helen of Troy in Hawkins, Indiana. She'd say  _jump_ and they would already have reached the moon for her, pulled down the brightest stars from canvases of constellations for her, and she didn't have a clue. And they were both so,  _so_ fucked. 

Inside the theater, Nancy sat between the two boys. She divided her attention with a surprising amount of ease, no discernible strain, nothing that could imply she preferred one of them. She cherished their company in equal parts; it was, in fact, less taxing to be with them both than to try and keep them separate. The three of them all together was weird and foreign but  _right,_ and they each came to that same conclusion individually as they sat there in the worn fabric seats with their shoes sticking to the soda-stained floor. No matter what anyone else had to say about it, this was something good. 

Tommy and Carol walked in a few minutes before the movie was set to start. The look of moderate irritation on Nancy's face made it clear to Steve and Jonathan that she could hear their snickers and jeers. 

"I could beat them up, too," Jonathan muttered, and Nancy grinned before gently swatting at his leg. 

"I don't want us getting kicked out.  _Or_ you getting arrested again." 

Jonathan practically sulked in his seat. 

"I have my pocket knife," Steve offered, casual but maintaining Jonathan's volume. "I could go out during the movie, slash Tommy's tires."

Nancy seemed ready to object with a strong _no_ , but then Tommy wolf-whistled, which was probably the biggest mistake he could have made. She quietly told Steve that he could slash whatever of Tommy's he wanted. 

Halfway through the movie, Steve motioned for Jonathan to follow him, and the two boys slunk out of the theater for a few minutes. 

None of them stuck around afterwards to watch Tommy discover the damage. But come Monday morning, they heard that Tommy and Carol had walked to school, and they all wore identical subtle smiles for the rest of the day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gotta love teenage vandalism


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Study dates. Late-night talks on the street curb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing jonathan is incredibly cathartic because he's honestly me af  
> but i like to think that he's slightly better at a poly relationship than i was lmao yikes  
> beta'd! this is also my last pre-written chapter, so updates may start being a little more spread out.  
>  **For best reading experience, listen to "In Reverie" by The Paper Kites.**

Jonathan was an anxious guy. 

Not giving a shit about what people thought of him didn't mean he wasn't always on his toes. In fact, that was why he _had_ to be. He'd grown used to it for the most part-- the twitching fingers, the shaky legs, all of it. He'd accepted, albeit with a shred of resignation, that it was just as much a part of him as his skin and bones. There wasn't much he could do about it, and that was fine. He could work around it. 

As he stared himself down in the bathroom mirror at Nancy's house, heart pounding and stomach somersaulting, he figured this to be a rare moment of tossing that acceptance out the window. He wished he could surgically remove his fear somehow. 

He didn't want to be anxious around Nancy. And to a certain extent, he realized that it _wasn't_ her that made him anxious. It was the whole goddamn situation that had him wanting to turn heel and run. 

Trailing back up the stairs to Nancy's room (Nancy's  _room_ , holy  _shit_ ), he tried convincing himself that it was not without reason. These were uncharted waters, this thing he had with Nancy and Steve. He had no idea where he should let an anchor down, or whether he should be letting one down in the first place. 

He hesitated in front of Nancy's door, hand on the doorknob, wondering if it would be better for all of them if he up and bolted right now. 

It wouldn't. Nancy would be sad and Steve would worry he'd been a jerk on accident, and Jonathan couldn't handle that-- couldn't handle the idea of them both being upset that he'd left. 

He steeled himself and stepped into Nancy's room. 

Nancy and Steve were the same as they were when Jonathan had gone downstairs: sprawled on the floor, their homework in organized chaos, and going through vocabulary flashcards. 

"Crepuscular," Nancy read.

"What the  _fuck_." Steve tugged on the strings of his sweatshirt until only his nose poked out of the hood. "That's not a word, Nancy, you're lying." 

"It's an adjective," Nancy replied, smiling as she reached over to loosen Steve's hood. "And it refers to things that are active at dawn and dusk." 

"Why can't people just say  _active at dawn and dusk_?" Steve gestured to Jonathan as he returned to sit among the disorder. "You're with me on this, right? That  _crepuscular_ is unnecessary and excessive and bullshit?" 

It had been weird the first few times he and Steve had to hang out together with Nancy, for obvious reasons. But that skin-crawling sensation of doubt had faded the more time they spent with each other, and it had soon become clear to Jonathan that Steve wasn't actually a shitty guy. He'd just been with a shitty crowd. 

So the small crooked grin he gave was entirely genuine. "It's bullshit," he agreed. 

"Thank you!" 

"Bullshit or not, it could still show up on the SATs," Nancy said, swatting them both with the notecard. "So  _focus_." 

Jonathan resumed his abandoned math problem set while Nancy continued quizzing Steve, occasionally pausing when Jonathan asked for help (something Jonathan was also not used to doing). He'd known Nancy was good at math, but it was Steve who laid out the different problem-solving techniques best, which Jonathan couldn't have ever predicted. Then they switched, Jonathan helping Nancy with writing and Nancy checking over Steve's math. 

It was weird; this small loop of symbiosis that they'd created with one another. But it felt good and right, and Jonathan wasn't so nervous anymore. 

 

 

Maybe it was from too much of the dessert wine Nancy had swiped from her parents' liquor cabinet, or maybe it was from lingering worry about this thing they had going, or maybe it was because they were parked at an overlook with nothing but deep woods at their backs. Moonlight hit the tree branches in strange places, made them look like fingers reaching out to grab unsuspecting passersby. 

The wine didn't do anything to calm Jonathan; if anything, the loss of sharp coordination and alertness put him  _more_ on edge. 

He managed to hold out until they dropped Nancy off at her house-- eleven sharp, just as promised, because he and Steve really needed Nancy's parents to like them and never ask questions, _ever_ \-- but once they were a few blocks down, his brain called it quits and the world tipped forward thirty degrees. 

"You gotta pull over," he slurred, panic creeping into his voice.

Steve shot him a quick look from the driver's seat. "What?"

"I said pull the _fuck over,_ Harrington--" 

Steve swerved off to the side, narrowly missing someone's trash bins, and Jonathan was out of the car before it had come to a full stop.

"What are you-- oh, Jesus Christ."

Jonathan had reached cover beneath a large elm tree and braced himself against its trunk before doubling over and vomiting into the snow, staining it a deep red. His stomach rolled into his throat and he retched, planting his other hand on his knee as more of his insides forced themselves up and dribbled down his chin, sour and sweet all at once.

Ugh, _dessert wine._  

The ringing in his ears was so loud he didn't notice the sound of Steve's car turning off, or the driver's door slamming shut, or the soft crunch of boots on icy grass.

"Jonathan?"

"A little busy," he practically wheezed, and coughed at the taste left on his tongue. 

"Not a big drinker, huh." 

Jonathan spat and wiped his sleeve over his mouth. "Fuck off." 

"I wasn't trying to tease you." Steve shoved his hands into his pockets, seeming to be at a complete loss for what to do. "You, uh-- you okay?" 

Jonathan's stomach was starting to crawl up his throat again and he dug his fingers harder into the tree bark. "The woods," he managed, closing his eyes and riding a fresh wave of vertigo, "I can't, not anymore." 

He didn't need to be more specific. He knew Steve understood. 

Steve didn't say anything for a minute, only gave reassuring pats on the back as Jonathan continued to choke up wine and bad memories. 

"You wanna talk about it?" 

"Fuck no." 

"Just checking." 

Once the worst of the nausea passed and the snow looked more or less like a crime scene, the two boys went to sit on the curb. Jonathan was still too woozy to think about getting in a car, and Steve didn't want to have to hose down the upholstery in the middle of the night when he got home. 

"Sorry," Jonathan said finally, cutting the silence of the suburban night. 

"Nah, don't sweat it." Steve was dragging a stick across the wet concrete. "Happens to everybody once or twice." The branch in his hand stopped moving. "Your dad--"

"Shut up about my dad, Steve--" 

"No, no, I just meant... Is he why you're not used to it? Why you don't drink like other people?" 

A part of Jonathan that wasn't absorbed in keeping his stomach in his body acknowledged the significance behind Steve saying  _like other people_ and not  _like us_. 

"No, he's-- he wasn't like that, at least not that I remember," he said, drooping forward to rest his head on his knees. The urge to gag was still there, tightening his windpipe and making it difficult to speak. "He didn't drink, he was just an asshole with a lot of debt."

"Oh." 

"He tried making my mom feel small, so she'd feel like she needed him or some crap like that." He wanted to stop talking, but the alcohol sung in his bloodstream and slicked up the words he wouldn't have ever let himself say otherwise. "She's smart, though, my mom. She figured out what he was doing and they split."

"Good for her," Steve said. 

"Yeah." Jonathan's eyes traced the cracks in the pavement, aiding the lingering dizziness. "What made you ask about that, anyways?" 

Steve shrugged. It seemed like he regretted leading the conversation in this direction. "I guess I feel like I still have all these ideas about you and they're probably wrong." He went back to scraping the stick along the road. "You know I don't have a mom?"

Jonathan glanced over at Steve. In the dark, his face was lined with sharp shadows that made it hard to really see him. "You don't?" He responded, feeling a little dumb, but he wasn't sure what else he could say.  

"I don't remember much about her," Steve said. The false casual air didn't fool either of them. "She left when I was little and I haven't seen her since. I think she's living in Ohio with someone else now." 

"Why're you telling me this?" 

"I dunno, I just... I feel like all we know about each other is what other people have said about us, and that didn't seem right to me. I wanted something real." Steve shrugged again. "Sorry, that was lame." 

"No, it wasn't." When Steve looked at him with vague surprise, Jonathan added, "You were trying." Like that explained it all. 

They got back in the car after that because they both knew what sorts of things happened when the night was dark and quiet like this, and Steve drove Jonathan home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> upon rewatching episode 2, i realized that steve actually mentions his mom??? and i was like "o shit" but then i remembered this is steve harrington and it's not preposterous to think he lied in order to keep his shitty friends from teasing him yikes


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan's house. Rainy January weekends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a hot minute since i updated and i'm v sorry  
> people wanted more steve/jonathan, i'm a jackass who loves a good slow burn, and in conclusion, here we are  
> beta'd! probably not as well as it should have been but w/e  
>  **For best reading experience, listen to "Daft Pretty Boys" by Bad Suns.**

There were a lot of things that had changed drastically. A more subtle difference was that Jonathan no longer always walked home alone after school. Nancy lived in the opposite direction, so they would often part ways after class; Steve, on the other hand--

"The Rolling Stones are  _not_ outdated!" Jonathan protested. "They literally released an album two months ago!" 

"I didn't say they were  _outdated_ , I said they were  _old_." 

"Mick Jagger is only 40, okay, you can go to hell--" 

"40  _is_ old!" 

"I'm done talking about this with you." 

\-- Steve seemed to hang around more than Jonathan had expected. 

Neither his mom nor Will asked about Steve and his proclivity for coming over, and Jonathan was grateful for that because he wouldn't have had an answer for them. 

"You ever listen to Depeche Mode?" Steve asked. 

"A little." 

"Simple Minds?" 

"Yeah, I have a few of their tapes." Jonathan looked up from his textbook to where Steve sat next to the shelves upon shelves of cassettes on his wall. Steve was scanning through them, not touching any. "It's not a mint-condition collection, man. You can take them off the shelf." 

"Oh. Okay." 

Jonathan let Steve go through the tapes in silence for a while and tried to focus on the pages in front of him, but the words wouldn't register. There was a nagging thought at the back of his brain that itched at his skull, and he wanted nothing less than to validate it by giving it a voice, but it began to feel more and more like he had to. No matter how often he asked, no matter the degree of honest in the reassurances, there remained this doubt, this gnawing dread. He wondered if Nancy or Steve ever felt it, too. 

"What're you here for, Steve?" 

Steve paused, shooting him a quick glance before falling back to the tape in his hands.  _Real to Real Cacophony._ "Not sure I'm picking up what you're putting down." 

Jonathan didn't believe him, and by the looks of Steve, he didn't believe himself either. "If you want me out of this, just tell me," he said. "Quit dragging it out like this. I can tell Nancy I changed my mind and you won't have to worry about explaining." 

"... You juiced or something?" There was force under Steve's tone. "That's not what I want, that's-- that's the opposite of what I want. Why would you think I want you out?" 

"Why wouldn't you? She was yours first."

"She's not  _anybody's_ ," Steve said with an intensity that set Jonathan on his heels. "The only person Nancy belongs to is Nancy. That much I've figured out." 

"You know what I meant." The longer this drug on, the more pathetic Jonathan felt in his unease. "You two were together first. You guys, you're real. I'm an aside." 

Steve actually fucking snorted. "You don't get Nancy as well as you think you do if you think that's how it is." 

Jonathan bristled. He hated that he was dealing with all this doubt, but what he hated more was how lightly Steve was taking it. He felt mocked. "What's  _that_ supposed to mean?" 

"It means whatever she has with you is just as 'real,'" Steve said. "And I don't know how that works, but I got a feeling that you're gonna fuck things up between you and her if you keep playing on the defensive like you're doing." 

Jonathan suppressed the urge to punch Steve. That would only prove Steve had hit close to home. 

"If you think everybody's after you, how're you gonna let yourself be happy?" Steve had turned and busied himself with starting up the cassette player, an obvious and impractical attempt at lowering the tension. "How do you expect anybody to care about you if you don't let them?" 

Although the words were gentler, they bit hard into the walls Jonathan had so carefully built. They hurt precisely because Steve hadn't meant them to be hurtful, hadn't said them to be cruel; he was getting at something important, and it came from a deep place of worry and the desire to look out for someone else. 

Jonathan had nothing to say. His eyes bore into the seams on the quilt at the end of his bed, imagining the thread unstitching itself and falling away.

"That was outta line," Steve said, "I'm sorry--"

"No, you're right." Jonathan's voice as hoarse. This whole situation had fairly bowled him over, and he had yet to stop reeling. "This is all new to me, and I guess I keep forgetting that it's new to you, too."

The tape started to play, soft and hazy through years of winding and rewinding. The music sounded disjointed from the rest of the room, like it wasn't real. Nothing in the room except him and Steve felt real, and both boys realized that something important had just happened, but they weren't sure what. 

"Talk to her," Steve told him. "Tell her what you're thinking. That's what she wants us to do, you know?" 

"It's not that easy," Jonathan said. 

"Well, yeah. But it's not as messy as it is to hold it all in."

Jonathan's knee began to bounce in a silent up-down rhythm that didn't match the song, and he stayed quiet because he didn't trust himself to speak.

"She cares about you, man," Steve insisted. Then, perhaps with some hesitance, "we both do."

Jonathan's eyes flickered up to watch Steve fidget with the sleeves of his sweater, resembling a child who'd accidentally revealed a big secret.

_\-- Satellites communicate, pick up signal, then translate--_

"It's mutual," Jonathan said. And because he was uncomfortable with this strange touch-less intimacy, he added with a gesture to the lonely textbook on his bed, "Can you help me figure out what the hell an antiderivative is?" 

Steve stuck around for the rest of  _Real to Real Cacophony_ and Side A of  _Empires and Dance,_ but after that he said he needed to get back home because his dad was expecting him tonight. With heavy pounding hearts they bid their goodbyes and made delicate promises that they'd see each other later. 

Once Steve had gone, Jonathan remained by the entryway with his head against the door. 

_I always took you for a queer, but--_

Well. 

Shit. 

 

 

Another rainy day. January had a lot of those. 

With minimal convincing necessary, Nancy took Steve down to Jonathan's house; Jonathan opened the door to the two of them, damp and cold but smiling, with a copy of  _The Shining_ and a bag full of Snack Pack butterscotch pudding. 

"Guys, I have a book report--"

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," Steve teased, clapping Jonathan on the shoulder and brushing past. 

"Steve--" Nancy reached for him, but he was already inside. She stayed on the stoop, smiling up at Jonathan in that quiet way she had about her. "Is it alright if we come in?" She asked. 

"Well, your plus-one is making himself comfortable," Jonathan replied, looking over his shoulder to see Steve in the kitchen, talking to his mom. "And I've only seen _The Shining_ twice."  

Jonathan heard his mom exclaim "oh my god, that's so much pudding," and Steve's response of "Right? They were selling it in bulk, it was  _crazy_ \--" 

Nancy and Jonathan grinned at each other, and Jonathan stepped aside to allow Nancy in. "C'mon, it's freezing out there." 

Nancy and Steve didn't say anything about the house-- its old wooden slat walls, the outdated wallpaper, the narrow hallways. On the rare occasions people had come over in the past, Jonathan had been awfully self-conscious about his home. With Nancy and Steve, there was none of that burning shame he used to feel.

"Jonathan, I'm heading out for a while to run some errands--" Joyce had her bag flung haphazardly over her shoulder, searching for her car keys. Jonathan spotted them on the coffee table and tossed them to her. "--You kids need anything?" 

"That's alright, Ms. Byers," Nancy said. "But thank you." 

"Okay, I'll be back in a few hours, so don't--" there was an odd moment's hesitation where Joyce paused on the threshold, scanning over the three teenagers in her house, and it seemed as if she  _almost_ pieced it together-- "don't get into any trouble." 

Jonathan nodded and watched her from the door as she left. 

"Is she okay?" Steve asked. "She's kind of--"

"All over the place, yeah," Jonathan finished for him. "That's just how she is." He locked the door and faced Nancy and Steve. "So,  _The Shining,_ huh?" 

The VHS player barely worked (Steve had to smack it three times before the black and white static cut into the opening credits) and the heater was on the fritz again, which meant lots of blankets and huddling close together on the couch. Nobody was complaining. 

Nancy cracked open a can of pudding and settled into the sharp angles of Jonathan's body, her head on his shoulder and her soft brown curls tumbling down in long twists. 

"Is this okay?" She whispered. 

"Yeah," Jonathan said, and when he searched for the tension in his muscles he came up empty. "This is good." 

Steve flopped down on Nancy's other side, wrapping himself in a patchwork blanket and throwing an arm over the side of the couch. His arms were long enough, apparently, to comfortably embrace Nancy with his hand hanging limp off her shoulder. The fingers that had once curled into fists and bruised Jonathan's cheek were now gentle where they brushed against his skin. 

Nancy lifted her gaze from the film and glanced back and forth between her boys. Jonathan's heartbeat reverberated against her, rabbit-quick, and Steve was hardly paying attention to the movie at all, only focused on Jonathan and the expressions shifting across his face in the dark. She caught sight of movement over to her left and found Steve's hand around Jonathan's shoulder, thumb rubbing soothing circles through the fabric of Jonathan's shirt. 

Jonathan had been a solid  _maybe_ in her mind, but Steve came as a surprise to her. She'd figured, though, that it wasn't impossible for this to come full circle. It would've been hard not to; they were all so close. 

She felt Jonathan shift as if to lean further into the touch, and she smiled to herself before taking another spoonful of pudding. 

"I heard," Steve muttered, "that Jack signing the contract for the hotel is a metaphor, and he's actually signing himself over to the devil to manage Hell." 

"Oh yeah," Jonathan said, "and what creepy conspiracy theorist living in his mom's basement told you that?" 

"Is that your way of claiming the theory to be yours, Jonathan?" 

"Inaccurate. This house doesn't _have_ a basement." 

Nancy hushed them both with a soft swat of her hand because the sound wasn't loud enough to hear over their talking. 

The warmth of each others' body heat and the butterscotch pudding made it effortless to fall asleep on the couch, and they only really woke up when Joyce came home. She didn't make any comment about the three of them swaddled in a mess of teenage limbs and throw-blankets, simply asked if Nancy and Steve wanted to stay for dinner. Ultimately they declined because they didn't want to overstay their welcome, and they slowly began to round up their things and put on their shoes. 

(It was also, in part, because Will would be back soon, and they were worried that too many people would stress him out. He was okay, Jonathan had told them; he was just taking things slow. Nancy and Steve didn't ask further. The last thing they wanted to do was seem like they were prying.)

Steve gave Jonathan an awkward one-armed hug and Nancy kissed him lightly before they stepped out into the evening. The porch light warmed Jonathan's complexion, almost making him appear to have gone pink. 

Steve and Nancy walked down the street, listening to the  _taptaptap_ of their shoes on the wet ground. 

"So you and Jonathan," Nancy began. "Is that... going somewhere?" 

"What" Steve scoffed. "Pfft,  _no._ " He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and made a face like Nancy was crazy for even suggesting it. "Where'd you get that idea? That's-- you're just-- you, you're _nuts_ \--" 

"Okay, okay." Nancy held up her hands in false surrender. "I didn't mean anything by it, I'm sorry." 

"... 'S fine." 

Nancy held back her knowing smile until they went their separate ways at the end of the block, when she finally let her gentle laughter ring out into the infinite starry blue. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve's theory is a real one, and this is the article I found it in: https://www.bustle.com/articles/84772
> 
> (Since "Jack" is often a nickname for "Jonathan," I really wanted to include the line "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" in the dialogue. I'm a sucker for horror references ok)
> 
> ((Also god bless Joyce Byers honestly))


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy's good at ice-skating, and Steve and Jonathan are not. That's it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YIKES it's almost been a month since i updated, sorry about that guys, it's been a wild couple weeks of exams and getting rejected from college and binge-watching hannibal  
> i have another chapter in the works, but it's... it's rough. like. oh man. hopefully that should cut down the time between this update and the next one, though.  
> i hope!!! this chapter is okay!!! i beta'd but honestly who knows how much that helps anymore  
>  **For best reading experience, listen to "We're Not Just Friends" by Parks, Squares and Alleys.**

There was a new ice-skating rink a few blocks away from the neighborhood church, but it was only temporary and to be deconstructed by March. Nancy had been thrilled when she heard about it, and wanted to go as soon as possible; Jonathan and Steve, neither of whom could skate, were less enthusiastic. It wasn't like they could say no, though. 

"You're cutting off the circulation to my feet, Nancy." 

"That means I'm doing it right." Nancy tied off the laces and stood up. "You're all set." 

Steve wobbled as he tried to balance on the skates and grabbed Jonathan's shoulder for support. "Why is it always you two and some kind of sharp object, and me having no idea what's going on?"

"I feel like you can't compare ice-skating to fighting a monster from a parallel universe, but okay." 

"And I have no idea what's going on, either," Jonathan offered. 

"Oh, cool, then we can die together." 

"You're adorable when you're dramatic," Nancy teased. "It'll be fun, I promise." 

Nancy took Steve by both hands and stepped out onto the ice, the blades on her own skates glinting in the afternoon sun. Her grip was light, swathed in tanned faux leather gloves. 

"One foot at a time," she said. "I've got you." 

Steve had turned a hilarious color similar to a beet by the time he was fully in the rink, and he clung to the railing while Nancy guided Jonathan. 

"This was a bad idea," Jonathan muttered, and Steve nodded in earnest agreement. 

"Try going along the perimeter first." Nancy moved backwards on her skates, keeping the boys in her view as she went. "And relax yourselves!" 

"Relax, okay-- you  _do_ realize who you're talking to, right?" Jonathan asked. Steve burst out laughing and promptly slipped, barely saving himself before he could land on his ass. 

Nancy glided across the ice and put her hands on Jonathan's shoulders, easing them down until the muscles under her palms had loosened. "Just follow my lead," she murmured, looking up at him through her eyelashes. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, her lips dark and rosy, and Jonathan could have kissed her right there if he didn't think fifty other people would see them.  

"Okay," he said, his voice a little hoarse-- Nancy always seemed to know how to steal the breath from his lungs-- and watched Nancy move away until she was a couple yards out of reach. 

"Jonathan," Steve said without turning around. 

"Yeah?"

"I think we're whipped." 

"... Yeah, probably." They were moving at a snail's pace, but it was becoming less difficult to stay upright. "I mean, I don't think we'd agree to this if it was anyone else asking."

"Definitely not-- _shit, fuck--_ " 

Steve had stepped toe-first on the ice, getting the blade caught and tripping him. Jonathan, who had been doing pretty alright up until this point, now realized he had no idea how to stop. Even if he did, there wouldn't have been much time to act within the three inches of room they'd put between each other, so Jonathan figured he'd have ended up colliding with Steve's back one way or another. 

"Jesus  _Christ_." Jonathan struggled to regain his footing with Steve as a support-- not the best idea in hindsight, seeing how Steve was not remotely balanced either. 

"Oh my god, get  _off_ of me--" Steve skidded again, and since Jonathan had his arms locked around Steve's torso, both of them went down in a pile of winter clothes and gangly teenage boy limbs. 

"We couldn't even last five minutes," Jonathan said, muffled by Steve's jacket. 

"I blame you, just FYI." 

"Yeah, that's fair." 

Nancy was doubled over in laughter some ways away, and the boys took that as a sign to lay on the ice for a while before she came back. Their breaths puffed out in little synced bursts of steam, and even through the layers of clothes they could feel each other's steady thrumming heartbeats. When Jonathan tried to get up to preserve what was left of Steve's dignity, he found a gentle weight thrown across his back: Steve's hand, gloved in soft wool, nestled in the space between his shoulder blades. 

"You are  _not_ leaving me here looking like an idiot all by myself, Byers." 

Jonathan glanced over at Steve, having only slim ideas on what this was all about and confused by the ideas he  _did_ have; nevertheless, he let himself sink back onto Steve's body and listened to whatever Cyndi Lauper song was playing on the speakers. He couldn't ask, at least not right now, so he wasn't going to worry about it. 

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. 

Nancy came back over to help them to their feet, and they resumed their circling of the ice rink. It wasn't long before Steve's athleticism kicked in and he gained an understanding of the technique before Jonathan did. Amateur as he was, he was desperate to show-off, and Nancy humored him by only calling his bluff half of the time. How much bruising Steve's ass had taken in that two-hour time period, no one was really sure. But Steve got up every single time with an even more stubborn determination, and Jonathan began to understand why Nancy had fallen in love so hard.

At one point, Steve sped off to race an obnoxious twelve-year-old boy who had thrown out some jab about Jonathan's little brother, and since Jonathan was still rather limited to the railing, he appreciated Steve doing that for him.

"He likes you," Nancy told him as they began another lap, that subtle smile of hers tugging at her mouth. 

Jonathan frowned. "What do you mean?" 

"You know what I mean."

Jonathan dismissed Nancy's claim with a short laugh. "He's with  _you_ ; he's not gay." 

"Never said he was," Nancy replied. "All I said was that he likes you." 

They had abandoned their gloves a while ago, so she didn't miss the growing clamminess of Jonathan's palms against her own. She could read the perplexity painting his face as he located Steve on the other side of the rink, still racing that kid for him. Nancy had a keen eye; it was hard for her to miss things like this. 

"I'd never push you guys into something you don't want," she went on, "so this isn't me trying to... convince you, or anything." 

"Then what's your plan, here?" Jonathan asked. "You had an aim with this." 

Nancy shrugged, guilt knotting inside her for putting Jonathan off. "No aim. Just keeping things open." 

Jonathan's eyes narrowed-- not in anger, but suspicion. "I don't believe you." 

"I'm not planning anything, I swear!" Nancy was trying her best to seem frustrated, rather than caught red-handed. "I don't want you two to _only_ be honest with me. I want you to be honest with yourselves, too."

Jonathan was at a loss for words, but was saved from having to conjure up a response when Steve made his way over to them with a shit-eating grin. 

"I won," he boasted. 

"He tripped me!" The kid shouted from the other end of the rink. 

"You can't prove that!" Steve shouted back. "You find some footage, _then_ we'll talk!" 

"My mom is gonna kick your ass!" 

"He's bluffing," Steve assured. 

"I'm not sure we should risk that," Jonathan said, and Nancy hurried off the rink while pulling the two boys behind her.

" _Did_ you trip him?" Nancy asked, once they were all safely back in normal shoes and half a block away from the rink. 

"'Course I did," Steve said, and Nancy pushed him playfully. "C'mon, winning was more important than integrity." He gestured to Jonathan. "We gotta look out for each other." 

Nancy shot Jonathan a look, almost too quick for Jonathan to catch it. 

"Thanks for that, Steve," he said. "You didn't have to--" 

"Yes I did. And it was no problem. You'd do the same for me." Steve paused. "What's got you smiling so much, Nance?" 

Nancy shook her head. "Nothing, it's nothing." 

The walk home was filled with contented silence and the roar of their thinking. 


End file.
